N Korean workers leave Angola after sanctions boost

LUANDA: More than 150 North Korean labourers have left Angola following tightened sanctions against the pariah state, the southern African country said on Tuesday.
Angola’s foreign minister Manuel Augusto told state TV the 154 guest workers, who had been working on construction projects, left on Sunday and Monday. They had been employed by North Korean building company Mansudae, which also builds monuments under the terms of a cooperation deal between the two countries.
Augusto said his country needed to meet "international obligations". "As their contract had finished, we saw no reason why they should stay in the country," he said. Angola is one of 11 African countries suspected by the United Nations of maintaining military ties with Kim Jong-un’s regime -- including training exchanges between police and military units. In an update published in September, UN experts said they had received no response from Luanda to the allegations of cooperation with Pyongyang.